ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

I have recently upgraded to ACT V11. After at least four hours with ACT tech services folks repairing my database, building a new empty database and importing the old one to the new one, etc etc... the program still brings my computer to its knees, requiring unplugging power to get my computer back. I can, and have, worked in other apps all day multiple days, stressed tested all my hardware including ram. ACT is the only program that crashes, usually in the first five minutes.

I have spend dozens of hours converting my Outlook data (I HATE Outlook), it doesn't matter what I'm doing in ACT. At times simply clicking on a button brings it down.

While trying to do data entry, especially in the email field, the cursor will jump out of the data field to the next field. It's REAL unstable.

Has anyone seen this before? I'm at my wits end. I like the new verison 11 IF I can get it stable.

Tech services is friendly, but I can tell they are clueless. I have however become quite familiar with the weather this week in southern India.

Re: ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

Didn't think it could get worse, but it has. My database is small, about 550 records, but it's old, going back almost to ACT under DOS, some 19 years. I thought if I could print hard copy of my notes for about 70 of the records, I could live with rebuilding from a brand new database. I have contact info, minus notes, history and activity in Outlook as I moved to it 2/07 when ACT had serious email issues.

I ran a contact report of 70 contacts, one per page. The output of multiple attempts is 8 records. This database is FUBARed.

I have an ACT 6.0 database backup dated 2/07, but I made the tragic mistake of pitching the 6.0 program disks.

I'm thinking of having tech services remove any spec of ACT (any version) from my desktop, loading V10 on my laptop, converting the 2/07 ACT6.0 database to V10 so I have my 17 years of notes and rebuilding my V11 database new from the ground up, one record at a time. I still have a fairly current Outlook contact database. It's just that if you want to run one simple letter in Outlook, you have to jump through 15 hoops to do so.

Hopefully Sage will allow me to activate my V10 on my laptop and keep my V11 on my desktop for the next quarter to year as I rebuild my records in V11. I simply don't trust ACT to import my Outlook records. Been there, done that, it's a mess.

I really do like V11 ALOT... I just need a stable database. From 4 hours with tech services I have swiss cheese for a database at this point.

Re: ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

On it goes. I'm thinking I can print my notes and history files in a contact report for each of the 50 or so contacts I need then rebuild my database from square one. ACT will not print to an adobe acrobat V8.12 file. Every other app on my computer prints actrobat files. I get a "can't find adobe acrobate resource files" error. I uninstalled Acrobat and reinstalled, still won't. What a mess.

Re: ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

Just to be clear, your issue is database specific? Meaning if you were to open the demo database, you will not have this problem? If its database specific, have you tried running database maintenance from actdiag?

Re: ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

Another option, if your crashes are related to your database, would be to go to the last working version of the database and export all your records to a new database in that version. That "might" strip off any residue left from a series of migrations and give you a clean database.

Re: ACT Crashing My Computer Tech Services No Help

Thank you for the suggestions. Yes, it is database specific, no issues with the demo database. As I had mentioned in my first post, over four hours Sage tech services have tried it all. Repair and rebuild all seven functions. No go. Then building a new empty database and importing all my data from the "corrupt" database to the new one. No Go.

I have made progress. I was able to use the contact report generator to print a complete pdf report of my old notes and contact info. A 220 page pdf put its accurate and I feel quite relieved having those notes in a pdf file.

What is odd is that if I attempt to choose acrobat from the drop down printer after the report is generated in the "preview" mode, ACT will choke and not make the pdf file. But... if i choose pdf from the drop down box initially, replacing preview with pdf file, ACT makes the report and converts it to a pdf file.

With my new pdf files and outlook backup of my emails I've gone about as far as I can. I'm now going to download the ACT removal tool from the Knowledgebase article, remove any trace of ACT from my desktop and then reinstall V11. I will rebuild my database manually over time one record at a time.

In Sage's defense database was over 15 years old and I'm afraid it just "gave up the ghost" as it were. Tech support went above and beyond trying to assist me. I love the new and improved ACT and will just grin and bear it. They have FINALLY gotten it down right. My intent is download my contacts on to my Blackberry so maybe this is the great database Gods in the Sky's way of getting my contacts down to bare bones for the Blackberry. At least I have a resource to go back to for my old notes and activities. My attachments seem to be in order so it's now just a matter of "starting over". Just the way it worked out. Who knows, going through every record might not be such a bad thing in the long run.